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Confirmed with Link: Zetterlund, Robins, 4th to Ottawa for 2025 2nd, Zack Ostapchuk, Noah Gregor

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Is Ostapchuk really that much worse/different than Fraser Minten, the centerpiece of a trade for a far more valuable and experienced player than Zetterlund (one who also has term remaining on his deal)?

Minten is a year younger but is basically putting up identical AHL numbers to what Ostapchuk did last year. Smaller and less physical than Ostapchuk too. Leafs prospect hype machine goes crazy but from what I can tell these seem like pretty similar prospects.
 
TheBeard said:
I think the most impressive thing about this deadline, and all the trades this season, he brought in zero d-men except for Descharnais. Brought in a whole bunch of physical bottom 6 players because we obviously didn't have enough, but no defensemen.
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That's my complaint as well. If you're gonna do the Vanacek trade for practically nothing, why not have the practically nothing be someone who plays defense which is not just a shortfall for the big club but the AHL club as well. We don't need all these grinder forwards.
 
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LadyStanley said:
Gregor was wearing 73 with Sharks/Barracuda. (That's Tiffoli's number; 37 is Liligren's #)

Have to think he'll have a new number.
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He wore 18 in Toronto but he'd probably have to work something out with Bystedt to have him change his number since they've been avoiding duplicate numbers on the Sharks and Barracuda.
 
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fasterthanlight said:
Ok... well, if Ostapchuk becomes a 3rd liner, then Grier+staff was right, if not, then this trade was bad and Grier was wrong. An easy evaluation datapoint, at least. I am hoping for the best!
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I see it as the 2nd rounder (likely a top 50 pick) is insurance that the gamble of Ostapchuk as a 3rd liner doesn't pan out.

It's definitely risky, maybe the ballsiest move Grier has made so far--I can't imagine he's clueless as to Zetterlund's role in the dressing room--especially with Ostapchuk's lack of production in the NHL this season.

So while the move does rub most of us the wrong way, I do sort of like that he's sticking his neck out in a bold way to try to craft the team he wants (and I also think Ostapchuk's production this year isn't some death sentence for his career, even his career as a 3rd liner).
 
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Star Platinum said:
That's my complaint as well. If you're gonna do the Vanacek trade for practically nothing, why not have the practically nothing be someone who plays defense which is not just a shortfall for the big club but the AHL club as well. We don't need all these grinder forwards.
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Grier said himself we need defense - that’s obviously going to be his target over the summer. I imagine the guys he wanted weren’t going to be available over the trade deadline so he wasn’t going to waste assets just grabbing whoever. They barely have a season left, Muhk gets to play top line minutes, etc., and he can target who he wants this summer.

And @Juxtaposer, I suspect that Grier is not interested in the guys you mentioned and will instead be trying to swing a trade for like a Byron, Nemec, etc. etc. He wants young guys and he’ll cushion them with Ferraro/maybe a couple of vets he picks up that aren’t hugely expensive. There my guess.

We’ll see!

Again, I still hate this trade. Things that will change it include: if Zack is actually a really good defensive, hard-hitting 3C, if Grier aggressively pursues making this team better (though Zetts could’ve been a part of that.)
 
Jargon said:
Grier said himself we need defense - that’s obviously going to be his target over the summer. I imagine the guys he wanted weren’t going to be available over the trade deadline so he wasn’t going to waste assets just grabbing whoever. They barely have a season left, Muhk gets to play top line minutes, etc., and he can target who he wants this summer.

And @Juxtaposer, I suspect that Grier is not interested in the guys you mentioned and will instead be trying to swing a trade for like a Byron, Nemec, etc. etc. He wants young guys and he’ll cushion them with Ferraro/maybe a couple of vets he picks up that aren’t hugely expensive. There my guess.

We’ll see!

Again, I still hate this trade. Things that will change it include: if Zack is actually a really good defensive, hard-hitting 3C, if Grier aggressively pursues making this team better (though Zetts could’ve been a part of that.)
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We now need another top-6 forward. We need two top-6 forwards and four top-4 defensemen.

Who has confidence Grier is going to land even half of those pieces?

UFAs aren't going to sign with us. We got lucky that Toffoli and Wennberg had reasons to choose the Sharks specifically. We'll be on the no-trade list of any established talent. So we're limited to acquiring these pieces via trade for guys who can't block trades to SJ, which means they'll be young (so either established and expensive to acquire or unproven and therefore risky) or bad. Great stuff!
 
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Juxtaposer said:
We now need another top-6 forward. We need two top-6 forwards and four top-4 defensemen.

Who has confidence Grier is going to land even half of those pieces?

UFAs aren't going to sign with us. We got lucky that Toffoli and Wennberg had reasons to choose the Sharks specifically. We'll be on the no-trade list of any established talent. So we're limited to acquiring these pieces via trade for guys who can't block trades to SJ, which means they'll be young (so either established and expensive to acquire or unproven and therefore risky) or bad. Great stuff!
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Well, I’ll see how the summer goes before I jump to the worst conclusions. We’ll see. He said he wants to give Musty and Chernyshov a shot if their seasons end early, maybe one of them will earn a spot. Graf might get a shot in the top 6.

Lucky or not, Grier did bring in those guys and maybe he can do it again. I can see Granlund re-signing (especially after the Rantanen trade, I don’t know if Dallas will extend him). So… we’ll see.

To me, the defense is the key.
 
Juxtaposer said:
We now need another top-6 forward. We need two top-6 forwards and four top-4 defensemen.

Who has confidence Grier is going to land even half of those pieces?

UFAs aren't going to sign with us. We got lucky that Toffoli and Wennberg had reasons to choose the Sharks specifically. We'll be on the no-trade list of any established talent. So we're limited to acquiring these pieces via trade for guys who can't block trades to SJ, which means they'll be young (so either established and expensive to acquire or unproven and therefore risky) or bad. Great stuff!
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If we don't land those pieces then we'll probably get to draft McKenna/Verhoeff/Belchetz after adding Schaefer/Misa/Martone this year. So that's half of those openings filled long term with players who have star potential, fit the age range of the core and will be under team control for 7+ seasons.

Eklund-Celebrini-Chernyshov
Belchetz-Smith-Graf

Schaefer-
Dickinson-

Askarov

If that's the skeleton of the team ~15 months from now it will be pretty easy to move surplus futures to supplement the core with slightly older established players. Top tier UFAs may still not sign with us but we won't need them to.
 
Hodge said:
If we don't land those pieces then we'll probably get to draft McKenna/Verhoeff/Belchetz after adding Schaefer/Misa/Martone this year. So that's half of those openings filled long term with players who have star potential, fit the age range of the core and will be under team control for 7+ seasons.

Eklund-Celebrini-Chernyshov
Belchetz-Smith-Graf

Schaefer-
Dickinson-

Askarov

If that's the skeleton of the team ~15 months from now it will be pretty easy to move surplus futures to supplement the core with slightly older established players. Top tier UFAs may still not sign with us but we won't need them to.
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Didn't we just discuss how one of those guys is going to bust, statistically?

Again, name one good NHL team that has a top-6 of forwards fully home-grown. There's none. You need external acquisitions to surround your core of two or three home-grown players.

This lineup is "Edmonton penciling in their future dynasty of Hall-RNH-Eberle/Murray-Schultz before the 2012 draft" levels of fantasy.
 
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Juxtaposer said:
Didn't we just discuss how one of those guys is going to bust, statistically?

Again, name one good NHL team that has a top-6 of forwards fully home-grown. There's none. You need external acquisitions to surround your core of two or three home-grown players.

This lineup is "Edmonton penciling in their future dynasty of Hall-RNH-Eberle/Murray-Schultz before the 2012 draft" levels of fantasy.
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It's really not, unless you consider Celebrini, Smith, Schaefer, Dickinson and Askarov on par with those Oilers guys.

Of course we need external acquisitions to pair with the young defensemen and push Chernyshov and Graf down that lineup but these will be easy to acquire with all the future assets we will have accumulated by that point. There's no need to rush and do that this offseason just to finish a few spots higher in the standings. Celebrini will still be 19 years old at the 2026 draft.
 
Jargon said:
Well, I’ll see how the summer goes before I jump to the worst conclusions. We’ll see. He said he wants to give Musty and Chernyshov a shot if their seasons end early, maybe one of them will earn a spot. Graf might get a shot in the top 6.

Lucky or not, Grier did bring in those guys and maybe he can do it again. I can see Granlund re-signing (especially after the Rantanen trade, I don’t know if Dallas will extend him). So… we’ll see.

To me, the defense is the key.
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And who are we going to get on defense? We apparently aren't willing to give out big contracts in free agency. The majority of good players with term have some form of no-trade clauses.

I went through every team's cap sheet trying to identify top-4 defensemen that had no trade protection, more than one year on their existing contracts, and weren't on ELCs/core guys that won't get moved for any reason. The list is like, Niko Mikkola, Jordan Spence, Alexandre Carrier, Alex Romanov, Nick Jensen, JJ Moser, Sean Durzi, Michael Kesselring, Filip Hronek, Zach Whitecloud, Kaeden Korczak, Trevor Van Reimsdyk, and Dylan DeMelo. And I really stretched the definition of "top-4 D" on some of these guys.

There are several interesting RFAs, but most of them have arbitration rights and would have plenty of leverage to avoid becoming Sharks long-term.

So what are we even supposed to do, especially if we don't land Schaefer? Like, this is f***ing dire.
 
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Hodge said:
It's really not, unless you consider Celebrini, Smith, Schaefer, Dickinson and Askarov on par with those Oilers guys.

Of course we need external acquisitions to pair with the young defensemen and push Chernyshov and Graf down that lineup but these will be easy to acquire with all the future assets we will have accumulated by that point. There's no need to rush and do that this offseason just to finish a few spots higher in the standings. Celebrini will still be 19 years old at the 2026 draft.
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Hindsight is 50/50. Obviously we know now that none of those players was all that good, but at the time it was widely prognosticated that that would be an elite, Cup-winning starting lineup.
 
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